


worth the wait

by finalizer



Series: not if it's you [2]
Category: Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, post-Vengeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-31 01:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20783684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/pseuds/finalizer
Summary: The realization wasn't spectacular. It wasn't fireworks and glitter and confetti. Everything fell into place quietly and without fanfare. Just like that, Victor knew what he wanted.





	worth the wait

**Author's Note:**

> direct continuation of [the first who ever did](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20473970)

Mitch never brought it up afterwards. Victor had been drunk, after all, and Mitch must have assumed he didn't remember any of it. 

Victor was grateful. It had given him time to think. Not that he'd had very much time to do so in between dying, escaping EON, bringing about Marcella’s downfall, dying some more, and going on the run, alone, following that particularly bloody evening in a nondescript storage facility. 

Just like that, two years had ticked by—two years since that night, the emptying bottle, the distance between them closing, the soft press of lips.

Victor had tucked the memory away to be revisited at another time, when there wasn't as much on his mind and as much at stake. It resurfaced sometimes, eating away at him, throwing him off balance. Dwelling on it was no good. It always left him feeling more confused than when he’d started. 

And then he’d come back, no longer a dead man walking, and found a place for himself in the home Mitch and Sydney had created in his absence. And immediately, it all began to resurface—stronger, faster, at the most inopportune of times. With every casual glance at Mitch from across the room, something sparked at the back of Victor’s mind, sharp and demanding attention. With each brush of fingers, passing a plate, a phone, a scrap of paper towel, Victor’s nerves twitched. He watched Mitch, hanging on to every little detail about him, the way he did things, said things, the way he looked back at him, and Victor couldn't help but _wonder_. 

It took three weeks of that unspoken thing nagging at him for Victor to snap and decide to confront the growing tension; he thought he might explode otherwise.

He was in the kitchen, fresh out of the shower with a towel around his shoulders, when Mitch entered the apartment. It was early, only a few minutes past seven. Sydney was either asleep or slouched on her bed with her tablet in hand. She wasn’t likely to surface until much later. 

They exchanged greetings, a quick _‘morning_ and murmured _hi_, and continued about their respective tasks, Mitch unloading the groceries as Victor prepared coffee.

Mitch’s eyes were on him as he plucked a filter from the topmost drawer and fit it snugly into the coffee machine, as he took two mugs off the dish rack and flipped them to stand upright in wait.

It was silly, but Victor couldn't shake the feeling that he’d summoned Mitch through sheer force of will, like thinking about somebody promptly got them to appear. And he worried, too, that Mitch could read his mind, that all of Victor’s jumbled confusion was out in the open, ready to be heard. 

The way Mitch kept stealing glances at him as Victor firmly pretended not to notice, that was the final straw. He wanted to ask, he needed to know, and the question kept bubbling up in his throat, choking him, as he tried to put it into nice enough words to speak aloud. 

He pushed the _brew_ button with as much self-control as he could gather, keeping himself and his temper in check. He then sank into one of the stools at the bar and leaned his elbows on the counter, breathing out and letting his mind drift just for a moment. Mitch kept milling about, putting things away into cupboards, but Victor hardly registered the flurry of movement. Instead, he closed his eyes and remembered the way Mitch’s hand had brushed the hair from his face, the way he’d looked at him _after_, like it was all unreal, an impossible dream.

He wanted to ask why that was. He wanted to know what had been running through Mitch’s head right then, to understand what it was that Mitch had felt that night and whether he felt the same way _now_, but Victor’s brain refused to arrange the questions the right way. He was a second away from blurting out something blunt and awful, and his entire body screamed at him to _just get it over with._

Distantly, he felt his fingers tapping restlessly against the marble. His eyes were open now, but unfocused, stuck on a smudge on the far wall. Something passed by him, a dark shape, but Victor was floating aimlessly, _wandering_, through the muddled hellscape of his mind. 

Someone was saying something, but it was far away. Victor tried to focus on the voice. It was saying his name, growing louder, more insistent. 

Then, it clicked. Victor’s head snapped up and he blinked to clear the haze away. Mitch was standing on the opposite side of the bar with a glass of chocolate milk and an unwrapped, half-eaten granola bar laid out in front of him.

Victor stared blankly for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't draw his eyes away, and the way Mitch was looking at him didn't help in the slightest. His brows were drawn in a delightful mixture of concern and mild amusement as he enjoyed his meager breakfast, his dark eyes so open and genuine and _vulnerable_ that Victor was almost envious of how easily candor came to some people. 

He knew right then that he was never going to come up with a better way to ask. His mind was blank. Screw decorum. He swallowed thickly, and spoke. 

“How long have you wanted to fuck me?”

There was a shocked sputter, a sharp cough as Mitch choked. His eyes widened in surprise, or perhaps distress, or fear. Whatever it was, Victor had never seen that particular expression on his face before. He waited silently, impassively, for Mitch to catch his breath.

“Jesus _fuck_,” Mitch said eloquently. Everything about him was suddenly high strung—his posture, his voice, the set of his lips. “Was that necessary?”

“What?”

“The profanity.”

“_Mitch_.”

“No need to be crude about it,” Mitch said in that special tone of voice he reserved for chiding Sydney’s increasingly colorful language.

Victor wasn't too worried about the reprimand. Mitch was never going to take offense at the straightforwardness of the question. They had always been dangerously blunt with one another—five years in close quarters, in a prison cell the size of a broom closet, left no room for beating around the bush.

“Was I supposed to ask how long you’ve been in love with me, then?” Victor tried. “I didn't want to assume. I was going more for attraction. Unless it’s both, then by all means.”

He was acutely aware of the dispassionate lilt to his voice, like he was brainstorming a clever new hypothesis and not asking his best friend about his deepest, darkest feelings. Even so, he didn't know how to soften the words, and distantly knew that a false, cloying sweetness would bother Mitch more than this _hollowness_. At least this way, with his voice cold and level, he was being honest. This was him staying true to his nature. And perhaps, beneath all that, he was giving Mitch a chance to realize this and back out, change his mind, before everything became too complicated.

Mitch’s gaze was glazed over yet somehow clear, present, like there was an alarm blaring through his skull, like he was considering lying, or perhaps blacking out, or swiveling on his heel and booking it out of the apartment. Of course—he wasn’t used to giving answers because he wasn't used to Victor asking questions. Victor didn't make a habit of discussing anything too personal, especially not first thing in the morning, and certainly not sober.

The desire to change the subject and run was familiar. But Victor couldn’t, not now, because it would haunt him without mercy. He had to know the truth, and he refused to wait another minute to hear it. 

“Just answer the question,” he said. There was no bite, no heat to the words, just a genuine, innocent curiosity. 

Mitch remained wary. He shot a glance at his crumbled granola bar like it would give him some pointers on how to continue. His breathing was slow and measured; he seemed to be timing his inhales and exhales, in and out.

Victor sighed. He decided to change his approach. Despite his outward appearance, the way he was perceived by everyone, Mitch had never responded well to aggression. There was something inherently soft and serene about him that Victor had always found especially interesting. 

And so, he gave Mitch the chance to answer on his own terms.

“What was your first thought when I walked into that cell?”

“That you were going to die,” Mitch said flatly, without flair or preamble. 

Victor scoffed, amused.

“Your curse?” he asked with a faint smile, and Mitch hummed in agreement.

“Your second thought, then?”

“After the stunt in the cafeteria,” Mitch said immediately, like he didn't even need time to consider his answer, like he remembered the events of a decade ago as though it had only been a few days, “it was that between the two of us, it wasn’t you who was in danger, after all.”

Victor paused at that. A slight, involuntary frown creased his forehead.

“I was glad to have you on my side,” Mitch elaborated. “In my corner. Better with you than against you.”

“And then?”

“Then?”

“Your third thought. The next—”

“That night Garner decided to mess around with his shiv and my fingers, and I came back from the infirmary, and you shut off the pain. That was the first time I wanted to kiss you.”

Something shifted in Victor’s chest, something heavy and hot and agonizing. He felt ridiculous for never having noticed it before, not really, that glint in Mitch’s eyes, what it meant. He’d never understood why Mitch stuck around for as long as he did, or the way he looked at Victor, the way he worried, and cared, and protected, and _loved_. 

Now, as he looked at Mitch and Mitch looked back, everything out in the open, Victor didn't know how he could have been so blind, so awfully self absorbed as not to see it.

“Ten years,” he said numbly. “What were you waiting for?”

Mitch shrugged. The grim smile playing at his lips didn't quite reach his eyes.

“You had other things on your mind.”

And this—_this_ was something Victor understood.

Humans craved attention, whole and undivided. In that respect, Victor was no different. But he hadn't been there for Mitch, hadn't given him that same luxury.

In prison, Victor’s only focus had been orchestrating his revenge, then their escape. After, he’d been busy executing his plan, then dying, and dying, and dying some more. Then he’d abandoned his family and ventured out on his own, and when he couldn't bear it any longer, he’d come back. There’d been no time to spare to think about the way Mitch’s expression shifted whenever he met Victor’s eyes, like it was tearing him up inside, like it _hurt_. 

He watched Mitch now and tried to read his mind the way Mitch could always read his, and drew a blank. He didn't know what to do with the way Mitch looked at him—like he was the only thing that existed, like everything else in the world had faded to a dull gray. The ache in Victor’s chest grew. He couldn't fathom how it was possible that he’d never noticed it before, how preoccupied, how _egoistical_ he must have been. The guilt, still a brittle, foreign feeling, crept up and curled tightly around his ribcage like vines.

“And now?” he asked.

Mitch’s smile was bitter. “I’ve shown you my cards. I’m an open book. Now, it’s your turn to tell me what you want.”

Victor didn't expected the focus of the conversation to turn to him. His blood rushed in his ears and made his head spin, an insidious anxiety taking hold. It was simple, the reason he didn't know what to say—because he didn't know what he felt, what he wanted, or whether he deserved the things he wanted. Whether he deserved the home he’d found and the family that came with it. More than anything, in that moment, he hated that he didn't understand what it was he felt about Mitch. He knew he loved him because he loved them both, him and Sydney, and he knew that there was nobody in the world who knew him better. What he didn't know, was if that was enough. He didn't know if he could give Mitch what he wanted, what he needed, what _he_ deserved.

Victor’s chair scraped against the floor as he pushed away from the bar and turned his back on Mitch to pour himself a cup of coffee. He needed a distraction, if only for a minute. He placed his hand against the pot and found it lukewarm; he’d lost track of time. 

His heart was beating uncomfortably fast. There was nothing physically wrong with him, he knew this. He wasn't in pain, but the pressure in his chest was reaching its peak. A voice in the back of his mind suggested that if _this_—this thing between them—terrified him so damn much, it had to mean something. 

He mulled the thought over and shoved it away. He took his time with the sugar, poured the coffee into his mug at a glacial pace. It scared him. He grit his teeth and admitted to himself that it fucking scared him, that it was up to him to make the next move.

“Vic, say something.”

He started. The bright digits on the microwave clock told him he’d been standing motionless for the better part of two minutes. 

There was an urgent note to Mitch’s voice that Victor did not like. It tugged at him, churned his insides, a gut instinct telling him something was very wrong. Then, like a switch had been flicked, came the stillness, the silence, the moment his head was cleared of everything but a single, crisp _oh_. 

The realization wasn't spectacular. It wasn't fireworks and glitter and confetti. Everything fell into place quietly and without fanfare. Just like that, Victor knew what he wanted.

In that instant, it made perfect sense. He wanted Mitch to be happy, to _make_ him happy, to please him, to comfort him, to wipe away the hurt, whatever it took. It was a screaming, kicking, greedy thing, that sudden desire. 

Victor picked his coffee up and, as though through a fog, turned and set it down on the bar counter, just far enough from the edge to keep it from tipping over onto the floor. The movements were automatic; his gaze he kept focused solely on Mitch. 

“I’m not very good with words,” he admitted, trailed off.

Mitch twitched like he meant to tell Victor off, to demand he make an effort and just _try_ for once. But the words seemed to die in his throat, suffocated by visible apprehension as Victor took another step forward. 

Victor’s hand slid away from his mug. His legs took him where he needed to go—around the counter to the other side, where Mitch was standing, waiting anxiously for Victor’s decision.

Victor stopped only inches away from him. He didn’t hesitate. He reached up, cradled Mitch’s jaw in his hands and tugged him forward. It was a fair imitation of another night, another kiss. Short and chaste, but so much more.

He’d expected himself to freeze up, backtrack and flee, but his movements were smooth and decisive as his pulse fluttered and his fingers traced backwards to the nape of Mitch’s neck, like his body knew better than his mind what he needed. It was as though in the five steps it had taken him to walk around the counter, Victor had made up his mind and decided what he wanted, now and forever. 

For a dizzying moment, Mitch must not have realized what was happening, but when he snapped awake, he surged forward, one hand in Victor’s damp hair, desperate and fervent, the other at his hip, possessive. He tilted Victor’s head back, parted his lips, pushed against him, crowded him against the countertop at his back. Victor ignored the dull jab of pain; he had half a mind to turn up his sensation, to let himself drown in the white noise filling his mind. The only thing he could think of, was that everything finally felt _right_. 

He couldn't hold back his breathless gasp when they parted. He ran his tongue over his lips before he realized he was doing it, like he was trying to memorize this moment, how every nerve in his body felt like a live wire. The way Mitch was looking down at him was dangerous, it was reverent, it was _relieved_. Until the very end, he hadn't been sure what Victor would say, what he would do. 

Victor closed his eyes, took a breath, and dropped his head onto Mitch’s chest. He sagged forward with exhaustion, like he hadn't slept for weeks, like he’d finally solved an unsolvable problem, and this was his reward. Mitch’s hand at Victor’s nape traced aimless patterns in an absently comforting gesture, tangling in his hair. It was steadying, grounding Victor in the here and now.

Minutes passed like that before Mitch broke the silence.

“What’s on your mind?”

When he answered, Victor’s voice was muffled, his face pressed against the soft fabric of Mitch’s sweater. One of his hands was braced against Mitch’s side, like he needed it to keep himself upright. He surprised himself by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was jumbled, but it was honest.

“Caught between thinking you deserve better than me,” he murmured, then cleared his throat and went on, louder, “and that this is as good as it gets. Us—this messed up pair. Shared life experience. So, might as well. We’ve already acquired a daughter and a dog and house in the suburbs.”

Victor felt Mitch’s laugh rumble through his chest. That spark, that _something_ that had been churning in his gut this entire time doubled and tripled, but differently now; it was warm, pleasant and satisfying. 

There was a poke at Victor’s side, and another, urging him to look up. He righted himself and met Mitch’s eyes. Cold blue met rich brown and Mitch’s gaze held a challenge.

“Why would you think I deserve better?”

“You do.”

“Do I?”

Victor wanted to scream at him that _yes_, yes he did, because while Mitch was far from innocent, he didn't know half the wretched things Victor had done, the things he wished he’d done that were even worse, the horrid thoughts that ran through his mind. He didn't know that Victor hardly ever felt remorse for any of it, and that he never even felt the need to dwell on that part of himself. He didn't know that it didn't bother Victor, being a monster.

Mitch had stuck alongside Victor as he’d dragged him deeper and deeper into a cesspit of darkness. And then Victor had left them—him and Sydney—yet they’d waited and taken him back with open arms, and open hearts, and he wasn't worthy of that— 

His train of thought was severed when Mitch leaned down and kissed Victor again. It was a featherlight press of lips, Mitch’s palm firm against Victor’s cheek like he was trying to convince him none of it was true. Insistent, to force through Victor’s stubborn skull that he _did_ deserve this, that Mitch knew all that, knew _him_, and wanted him anyway. 

Everything slipped away, the coiled tension and jittering nerves seeping out of Victor’s body like melting ice. All he knew was the press of Mitch against him, the hand on his cheek, the lips over his. The world around them vanished. 

He felt himself growing flushed again, heat in his chest and red on his face. He cursed inwardly as he pulled away, that his complexion would always betray him the way Mitch’s never did.

Mitch didn't drop his hand. He settled it along Victor’s jaw, thumb brushing over his lips, so gentle it felt like a dream. 

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” he said quietly. “But I’ll always choose you.”

**Author's Note:**

> thought it would be kinda sexy to switch out the pov and write this one from victor's instead 
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](https://tarmairons.tumblr.com)
> 
> title from btsk by ms mr  
_it didn't come easy_  
_i'm glad it was hard_  
_worth the wait_  
_to give you my heart_


End file.
